


Smile like Sunlight

by artemisgrace



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Internal Monologue, Light Angst, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-01 20:00:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20263720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artemisgrace/pseuds/artemisgrace
Summary: Crowley thinks about the drawbacks to having his imagination, and how much of that revolves around Aziraphale . . . and about his own boundless foolishness in thinking he could ever do without the angel . . .





	Smile like Sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @patlocked on Twitter for the exchange! I hope you like it! :)
> 
> (I've never written for this fandom before, so I'm not super confident, but I hope it's still enjoyable to read!)

He’s got a smile like sunlight, and much like the sun is wont to do, it burns.

It’s that all too familiar feeling, the sensation you get when you can’t tell if it’s too hot or too cold, but either way it hurts. It hurts to look at Aziraphale sometimes, hurts even to think of him, and the irony that something so fundamentally good is the very thing that causes him such pain does not escape Crowley, indeed, it’s an irony he’s found to be the very foundation of his existence. 

“I won’t even think about you,” he’d said, in a fit of frustration and the accompanying anger … Fat chance of that, Crowley can only sigh, because he’s never really stopped, has he? This imagination of his, such a rarity among demons and angels alike, can be as much of a curse as it is a … he doesn’t want to call it, or anything else really, a blessing so he shan’t. As much of a curse as it is … a convenience, then. 

He imagines sometimes what it might have been like, had he never fallen and had they known each other up above the clouds rather than here upon the ground. Would they have been friends, as they are now -though perhaps not now, not now that Crowley’s been a bloody idiot- and would their friendship, had they had one, been as fraught as theirs has been here on earth? Would being in heaven be better, or worse? 

If they had known each other back then, would Aziraphale have fallen with him, or might neither of them have fallen at all? If he hadn’t been so lonely, with no one close enough to distract or stop him, would he still have asked all those dangerous, unfortunate questions? And here he is, he thinks as a bitter chuckle shakes his body, asking half a dozen questions in one go, with the answers no easier to be found than they were back at the beginning, when, in his confusion and curiosity, he damned himself. 

He was just curious is all, he didn’t mean anything by it … 

Crowley fully understood the concept of holy obedience, he didn’t even dispute it, not in general, but surely obedience couldn’t be holy, not when it’s blind! But maybe he really was just a bad angel from the start, perhaps he deserved all this … but Aziraphale doesn’t. There’s nothing he’s ever been more certain of than that; Aziraphale is good, so good that he was kind even to a demon, without effort or thought behind it. It was kindness, in its purest form, entirely guileless, and yet in the eyes of heaven, its discovery would be a death sentence, a disobedience that couldn’t be permitted.

How could his kindness ever be a sin? But they'll certainly call it that.

Maybe that makes Crowley even worse, because he knows all this, knows the dangers, but he can’t -or possibly just won’t- let Aziraphale go. He told Aziraphale goodbye in no uncertain terms, in fact in rather rude terms, but he’s done that a couple times before, and it never sticks. It won’t stick this time either. He’ll go back, and he’ll keep dragging his own personal angel down … because lord knows he can’t climb his way back up. 

They’re all of them not much different from humans, in a way. They may live forever, but they make the same mistakes as humans, over and over, mistaking a sense of righteousness for genuine goodness, angels committing evils in its name … Demons like Crowley doing good deeds simply because he can’t stop himself, certainly not when Aziraphale smiles at him. And angels like Aziraphale, being just bad enough to be interesting, the kind of bad that only serves to make him even better … It’s their individual natures that guide them, for good or ill. 

And Crowley’s nature, it would seem, is pure stupid. Maybe he’s not bad, but history tells him that he’s sure skilled at making bad decisions. He shouted at Aziraphale, told him that he was leaving and wouldn’t even miss him, and does a less believable thing even exist? He's a demon and he can't even lie properly If Aziraphale believes him for even a second, maybe they’re both as stupid as each other …

He’d said that he’d happily never see Aziraphale again, and in that brief moment, he’d meant it … but his conviction never lasts long. Just give it half an hour.

He grimaces and picks up his phone.


End file.
